Abstract

The auditory brain‐stem response (ABR) was used to evaluate the auditory‐neural status of children with a history of frequent or persistent otitis media with effusion (OME). Subjects were selected from the case‐load of a board certified otolaryngologist and from the population at large. They were pair‐matched by age and sex to form an otitis‐prone and a control group. The otitis‐prone group included only those children whose degree of OME involvement was sufficient to warrant tympanostomy tube placement. Stimuli were rarefaction clicks presented at 85 dB nHl at a rate of 21.4/s. The latency of wave III and the III‐I interwave interval were longer for the otitis‐prone subjects than for the control subjects, which agrees with earlier results [R. C. Folsom, B. A. Weber, and G. Thompson, Ann. Otol. Rhinol‐Laryngol. 92, 249–253 (1983)]. The results and precautions in interpretation will be presented. [Work supported by Carle Research Foundation.]